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NEBRASKA AND KANSAS. 



SPEECH 



OF 



HON. EDWARD WADE, OF OHIO. 



HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, MAY 27, 1854 



WASHINGTON : 

BUELL & BLANCHARD, PRINTERS. 

1854. 



(o3l^ 



C)S 



SPEECH 



OF 



EDWARD WADE, OF OHIO. 



The House being in tbe Committee of the Whole 
on the state of the Union — 

Mr. WADE said : 

Mr. Ch.\ik.mas : The bill under consideration 
has given rise to much discussion, in ■which cer- 
tain Southern gentlemen, particularly the gentle- 
man from Is*entucky, [Mr. Pukston,] and the gen- 
tleman from Alabama, [Mr. Phillips,] have kindly 
volunteered to advise the few Independent Demo- 
crats in Congress that no Abolitionist had yet 
been so fortunate as to be entitled to the rank of 
statesman. This bill I suppose, must be consid- 
ered as ovring its paternity and nursing, to gen- 
tlemen now in Congress, who, if their own claims 
shall be allowed, will of course be installed as 
statesmen. Well sir, this bit of modern states- 
manship, proposes to set aside the whole course 
of territorial legislation practiced for sixty years — 
from the very organization of the Government — 
legislation devised by the framers of the Consti- 
tution, the very fathers of the Republic, under 
which, free Governments have been organized 
for at least nine Territories, viz : Ohio, Indiana, 
Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin. Iowa, Minnesota, 
Oregon, and Wasliington, of which sis have al- 
ready become members of the Union ; and in the 
working of which territorial system, I boldly defy 
these reckless innovators, to show a single act of 
hardship or injustice. Yes sir, this long-tried and 
faultless system, under which there have been 
nurtured and reared to political manhood, sixf?-ee 
States, in which a degree of prosperity, happi- 
ness, and progress, has been realized without a 
parallel in the history of the human race, is now 
to give way to this unlicked whelp, the joint pro- 
geny of a foul connection between Northern dem- 
agogism and Southern Slavery. The object, the 
sole object, of this iniquitous innovation is, to plant 
Slavery in the great Nebraska Territory — twelve 
times larger than the State of Ohio, larger than 
all the free States east of the Mississippi. 

To this end, the "statesmen" whose progeny 
his vile scheme is, have nicknamed it a ''popu- 



lar sovereignty," " congressional non-interven 
tion," and the " right of the people to regulate 
their own domestic institutions in their own way," 
"Government" — a sort of old puritanical "7/" 
Christ had not died, you would have been damned 
Barebone" name — having about it all the cant, 
but none of tbe sincerity of the old puritanical 
fanaticism. 

This Nebraska and Kansas bill is put forth as 
the model of this newh'-invented system of Terri- 
torial Government, for which, if the inventor has 
not yet taken out a patent, nor entered a caveat, 
I advise him to give himself no trouble about the 
matter, as no one will be likely to attempt a piracy 
upon it. 

But inasmuch as this bill is a sample of " popu- 
lar sovereignty," " congressional non-interven- 
tion," &c., &c. — I propose to analyze and show it 
up in its details as it is. And sir, if I do not call, 
I will still prove it to be, an impudent and insult- 
ing violation, in every material provision of it, of 
the most simple notion of " popular sovereignty," 
as well as of " congressional non-intervention." 
Sir, I will show it to be a bold attempt to impose 
on the credulity, a daring experiment on the sup- 
posed ignorance or the besotted prejudices of the 
people ; in each of which however, I entertain an 
abiding confidence, that the atithors of this in- 
iquity, not the people, will prove the dupes. 

Congressional «ore-intervention with the gov- 
ernment of the Territories, would be, to let the 
people of the Territories alone — to leave them — 
"hands off" — in the organization, administration, 
or change of their Government. 

Self-government and popular sovereignty imply 
the rights of the people to organize, administer, 
and to change their Government; and the right 
to " regulate domestic institutions," is implied in 
the right of " self-government," as the right of 
self-government, is implied in the duty of non-in- 
tervention. 

This bill however, stultifies these pretended 
Democratic doctrines, and gives the lie direct, to 



each and all of them, in the following particu- 
lars : 

1. Congress — not the people of Kansas, or 
Nebraska — creates a temporcury government for 
the people of the Territories. 

2. Establishes an Executive Department ; the 
Premlcnt, not the people, appoints their Governor 
for four years, and may dismiss him at any time^ 
however satisfactory he may be to the people. 

3. Creates, and the President, not the people, 
appoints a Secretary for five years, and may re- 
move him at his pleasure. 

4. Vests the legislative power of the Territories 
in the President's Governor and the people's Le- 
gislative Assembly — giving the President's Gov- 
ernor a veto on the people's leyislation. 

5. Limits the right of suffrage to the free white 
male citizens of the Territory. 

6. Establishes the judicial power, and prescribes 
the number of judges, and the jurisdiction of the 
courts ; the judges of which, the President^ (not 
the people) appoints, and may remove at pleasure; 
thus stripping the judiciary of its independence, 
and actually ingrafting on the Governments of 
these Territories, precisely the tyrannical feature 
of colonial oppression, which contributed most to 
the outbreak of the revolutionary war. 

7. Subjects the people to the odious and un- 
constitutional fugitive slave act. 

8. Provides for a territorial attorney and mar- 
shal, whom the President (not the people) ap- 
points, and may remove at his pleasure. 

9. Pays the Governor, Secretary, Judges, and 
Legislative Assembly, out of the United States 
Treasury, without the consent of the people ; 
placing thus every department of the Territoi'ial 
Governments above, and independent of, the people; 
thereby, in the name of " popular sovereigntj'," 
degrading them to the most abject state of colo- 
nial vassalage. 

10. Provides "that the Constitution, and all 
laws of the United States which are not locally 
inapplicable, shall have the same force and etfect 
within the said Territory of Nebi-aska as elsewhere 
within the United States, except the eighth sec- 
tion of the act preparatory to the admission of 
Missouri into the Union, approved March G, 1820; 
which being inconsistent with the principle of 
non-intervention by Congress witli Sla^'cry in the 
States and Territories, as recognised by the legis- 
lation of 1850, commonly called the compromise 
measures, is hereby declared inoperative and void ; 
it being the true intent aud meaning of this act 
not to legislate Slavery into any Territory or State, 
nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the peo- 
I)le thereof perfectly free to form aud regulate 
their domestic institutions in their own way, 
subject only to the Constitution of the United 
States." 

This section rccpiires the people of the Terri- 
tories to consider Slavery a '■' domestic institu- 
tion*" although each one and all of them may 
deem it a crime deserving the gibbet. It also 
permits each one of the people to practice Slavery 
on his own hook, upon whom he pleases, and as 
many as he can. 

The Territorial Legislature having, by this bill, 
no jurisdiction in the matter of Slavery at all. 
Such is Senator Butler's opinion of it, and such 



' is the true construction of it, if that " can shape 
be called which shape hath none." I refer to 
that Senator's language as reported : 

" Under this bill the South obtains some rights. 
' Lender the Missouri comjjromise they had none. 
' He was of opinion that the operation of the bill 
' would be that the Territo]-ial Legislature would 
' take no action on the subject, but would leave 
' it to the American citizens who resided in the 
' Territory, to act as they pleased in regard to the 
' introduction of slaves." 

In the same way it legislates the "domestic in- 
stitution " of polygamy into the Territory ; for 
Senator Butler's reasoning applies with equal 
force to polygamy ; or to 2>romiscitoiis conaihinajL, 
as to Slavery. ^ 

Now Mr. Chairman, in view of this great achcivc- 
ment, one is constrained to exclaim, All hail ! 
Pro-Slavery Democracy — Compromise Democra- 
cy — Prince of Shams and Humbugs ! Slaverj-, 
Polygamj-, and Concubinage, these are thj- .jew- 
els ! Well, thou hast touched bottom at last, 
as is clear by the mud brought up on tlieir fouled 
garments. 

Mr. Chairman, I claim to be a Democtat — I am 
a Democrat — a friend of justice and of liberty — of 
justice to the native aud the alien — of liberty and 
justice to the white, to the black, and to the red 
man; aud whenever I may use the word demo- 
crat or democracy in an oclious sense, I mean by 
it 3'our Pro-Slavery, your Compromise Democra- 
cy — precisely that sham — that cheat— that hy- 
pocrisy, which comes, in the abused name of 
Democracj-, to the support of this iniquitous bill. 

But, Mr. Chairman, the "popular sovereignty" 
folks ask, Avith a sort of "now we have got you, 
sir" air, "Cannot the people of the Territories 
judge for themselves as well as we can, what sort 
of ' domestic institutions,' will be best suited to 
their condition? Must we arrogate to ourselves 
here, the ability to understand and judge for the 
people of these Territories in these matters, better 
than they can judge for themselves ? Will a man 
going from New England, New York, &c., or from 
Virginia or Kentucky, after arriving in the Terri- 
tories, be less able to judge of the 'domestic in- 
titutions' best suited to his new condition, than 
he was before he left the State of his nativity?" 
Well sir, let me say to gentlemen whe put forth 
these insidious questions — "physician, heal thy- 
self." Answer me these questions, and then I will 
endeavor to answer youi4: Are not the people of 
Kansas and Nebraska, as competent to nominate 
and elect their Governor, judges, secretary, terri- 
torial attorney, aud marshal; and to determine 
how long these oflicers shall hold their offices, as 
is the President of the United States? Is it a more- 
aggravated violation of the new doctrine of 
"congressional non-intervention aud popular 
sovereignty," to exclude domestic Sl.Tvcry from 
these Territories, than it is to exclude the people 
from electing these officers, and giving to the 
President the power to appoint and remove them 
at his pleasure; and in defiance of the will and 
wishes of the people ? 

Is a citizen of Ohio, of New York, or Massa- 
chusetts, or of Virghiia, Tennessee, or Louisiana, 
if competent to vote for a Governor, a secretary, 
an attorney, a judge, or a marshal, in the State 



domestic iustitutions." Yes sir, it is to license ; 
the slave Democracy, to shoot such women as 
flee from the brute who attempts to chastise them 
by whipping for a "trifling" oS'ence, that the na- 
tion has been set in a blaze of excitement, and the 
business of Congress brought up with a " dead- 
lock." The kind of " domestic institution" which 
this Ipng and knavish bill is designed to "reg- 
ulate" into these Territories, will be perfectly 
understood by the foregoing masterly exposition 
of an upright slaveholding judge. It is not to be 
overlooked, that the judge in that case, acknowl- 
edges the wickedness, the atrocity of the decision 
he pronounced ; and it would be well for slave- 
holders of the present day, to imitate his candor, 
instead of flying in the face of a scofling and con- 
temptuous world, by excusing or justifying Sla- 
very, which they know, and which they know that 
all mankind know, to be utterly unrighteous and 
indefensible. I desire to call the attention of the 
Committee to the striking fact, that Judge Ruflin 
in the case I have cited, could reconcile his own 
conscience to the most unrighteous judgment 
which he pronounced, only on the plea of the ab- 
solute necessity of it, in order to maintain the re- 
lation of master and slave where it actually 

EXISTED. 

What think you then, Mr. Chairman, would 
have been the judgment of that apparently hu- 
mane'judge — nay, rather, wliatmust be the judg- 
ment of that final Judge whose command is, 
" That which is altogether just shalt thou follow, 
tliat thou mayest live" — on this infernal scheme, 
which prostrates ever}- barrier to the entry of 
Slavery into these territories, now untainted with 
that crime and curse ? Sir, what think the real 
Democracy of the free States, (if the existence of 
such be not fabulous?) What think the honest, 
intelligent freemen of the whole country, of this 
device of wicked ambition which, for the naked 
chance of a four years' occupancy of the White 
House, would impose this devilish institution on 
these Territories ? " Sir, I call the institution of 
Slavery devilish : I do the Devil wrong, for even 
the Devil himself is free to do right if he will ; 
but this infernal machinery of man's devising, hav- 
ing its origin in vmn-stealing, carries with it, us I 
have shown from Judge Ruffin, the self-imposed 
necessity of committing the most atrocious crimes ; 
of whipping and then shooting women ; of steal- 
ing and trafficking in children ; and in short, of 
doing to unoffending human nature, all the injus- 
tice and outrage, embodied in those words of ter- 
;: ror, humax slavery. 

But to smuggle this element of wrong and ruin 
into these Territories, constitutes what the gen- 
tleman from Georgia [Mr. Stephens] calls the 
" Whig doctrine of the Revolution," the gentle- 
man from Kentucky [Mr. Breckinridge] the 
" truly American doctrine," and what the other 
advocates of the bill call the truly " Democratic 
''doctrine of 'popular sovereignty,' non-interven- 
tion, and self-government," and is, withal, the 
" domestic institution " which all the free State 
advocates of this vile cheat and swindle — Pro- 
Slavery Democrats — Compromise Democrats all 
of them — are endeavoring to fasten upon the Ter- 
ritories, in spite of the people, and to prohibit the 
people of the Territories from expelling therefrom. 



if so disposed. Besides, we are confidently as- 
sured by the gentleman " in the lion's skin," who 
does the printing for this House, that this is the 
scheme which, of all others, is the pet meas- 
ure, lying nearest the heart of the Northern De- 
mocratic President ; until the accomplishment of 
which, he and his Cabinet feel as woe-begone as 
did Haman while Mordecai was clothed in pur- 
ple, and riding on the King's mule. 

Mr. Chairman, among the multiplied sophisms 
put forth to cloak the real design of this iniqui- 
tous measure, is that of the gentleman from Ken- 
tucky — not original with him it is true, but con- 
fidently repeated by him ; that the power of Con- 
gress to prohibit Slavery in the Territories is an 
arbitrary, a tyrannical power, and implies the 
right to regulate the relations of husband wife, 
parent and child, &c. I give the argument in his 
own language : 

" The germ of congressional despotism is to be 
' found in this Missouri prohibition ; for if the 
' question of Slavery- may be determined for the 
' Territories by Congress, everj- other social and 
' political question may in like manner be settled 
' for them by the same authority, and this would 
' reduce them to the most abject colonial vassal- 
' age." 

Why sir, is the gentleman from Kentucky — are 
the slaveholders all — stark mad, to babble in this 
Avise, and call it argument? Is this flagitious 
bill, this iniquitous larceny of freedom's birth- 
right, to be justified on reasons which would con- 
sign a schoolboy irretrievably to the dunce-block ? 
Why, look at it, sir, and then say if I am not jus- 
tified in branding it as twaddle, and poor at that? 
"The power in Congress to jyroMiV Slavery in the 
Territories a germ of despotism ! " If this be true, 
then the converse of the proposition must be true 
also ; and so a power in Congress to prohibit lib- 
erty — (as it is in this bill) — why that would be, 
"popular sovereignty," doubtless. Alas, Mr. 
Chairmain, if this be so ; and the power to pro- 
hibit Slavery — the power to do that which, if a 
human Government, either cannot or icill not do, only 
proves it in theory and practice, a despotism, ripe 
and fitted for destruction, be a " germ of despot- 
ism," or a despotic element at all ; and the dis- 
covery of this profound secret, be one of the tro- 
phies of the statesmanship of the gentleman, it is 
well they have advised us of the fact; for without 
their testimony, nothing like statesmanship would 
have been suspected as lurking in it. Sir, if this 
wisdom of our self-laudiug statesmen, bring us no 
gem from profounder depths than this, well may 
we exclaim with the wise man of old, " What profit 
hath wisdom over folly ! " 

But, let us probe the gentlemen's statesmanship 
a little deeper, and see what will come of it. The 
power to prohibit Slavery is a "germ of despot- 
ism ; " so the power to prohibit piracy, murder, 
robl)ery, arson, rape, burglary, larceacy, and so 
on through the criminal code, are also " germs of 
despotism." Alas ! Mr. Chairman, if this be sound 
logic, and it must be since it comes from " stales- 
men," then there must be "germs of despotism " 
enough in the free States to seed with oppression 
all the nations of the earth. The gentleman's 
reasoning produces another result equally as- 
tounding ; that is, that the only States truly free 



8 



are those where Slavery exists, aud where the 
constitutions are purged of so " despotic a germ " 
as the power to abolish it. In this wise, sir, a 
"statesman," with a logical handspike, turns hu- 
man institutions topsy-turvy. 

But, seriously, never until I listened to this de- 
hate, could T realize how profound the obscura- 
ti )n, how total the eclipse of the moral and intel- 
lectual vision on this great truth, of the sacred- 
ness of human liberty, caused by perpetual con- 
tact with the gigantic wrong and wickedness of 
Slavery. Sir, the slaveholders denounce, with 
merciless severity, despotic Governments, seem 
horrified at the bare idea that Congress should ex- 
ercise a power in which may lurk the minutest 
■'germ of despotism," and nevertheless seem ut- 
terly^unconscious that the system of Slavery, to 
which they cling with a desperation bordering on 
nuidness, is the most odious, insulting, and cruel 
" despotism " which now curses God's footstool ; 
or that this inconsistency and mental blindness 
(to characterize them by no harsher epithets) ex- 
hibit the slaveholders of the United States as a 
laughing-stock to the civilized world. Nay, sir, 
such is the obliquity of moral and intellectual vis- 
ion, produced among Southern statesmen, (so 
they style themselves,) that civil society and gov- 
ernment are only seen by them up-side down, like 
the reflection of a landscape from the calm surface 
of the lake ; and hence, on perceiving in the or- 
ganization of a Government a power to prohibit 
slavery, the fellest of all the forms of despotism, 
this feature of it is presented to them as the very 
perfection of despotic power — one to which the 
gentleman from Kentucky declares the South 
" never will submit," when applied to the organ- 
ization of the Territories. That I may not be 
suspected of caricature, I give the gentleman's 
own language : 

" But again : cannot the North, with her over- 
' whelming numbers, comijete with us on these 

■ new theatres in the race of settlement and civ- 

• ilization — and must she not only violate the 

• Constitution by shutting out half the States, 

■ common property-holders with her — but in the 

■ name of liberty outrage liberty b}^ erecting a 

• despotism over the Territories? Sir. we nev- 
' er will submit to it — we will resist it to the 

• last." 

Yes, sir, such is the threat of insubordination 
and disloyalty to the Union, and such the cause 
of it. This abridgment of the liberty of the op- 
pressed slaveholder, aud the dealers in human 
Hesh and blood, this oppressive tariff on the busi- 
ness of huckstering in husbands and wives, moth- 
ers and their children, will never be submitted to. 
Well, sir, in reply to all this kind of bluster, I 
would respectfully ask, what kind of unnuhmissive- 
jiess, in the i)remises, do the slaveholders intend 
to manifest ? Is the old cry of wolf to be raised 
to frighten the doughfiices, which has, on so 
many occasions, and so successfully, been resort- 
ed to by Southern politicians — the ciy of dissolu- 
tion of the Union ? Let me say to the gentleman 
from Kentucky, that we of the free States have 
grown too familiar with this hysterical ill humor 
of the South. It has ceased to carry with it any 
terrors, but, on the contrary, there are multitudes 
now at tlae North, aud their number is rapidly in- 



creasing, who speak in no smothered tones of a 
separation as necessary, not only to the honor,, 
but the interests of the free States. And, sir, 
the mark of Cain, the brand of traitor, is in store 
for that son of the North, either in this House or 
wherever else, by whom or whose aid or counsel, 
this deed of shame may be consummated. Sir, 
morally, and ultimately politically, it will have 
been " better for that man that he had never been 
born." 

The gentleman from Kentucky, it seems, would 
set off against the popular outbreak on Boston 
Common, and the miiltitudinous other demonstra- 
tions at the North of intense hostility to this atro- 
cious bill, the approving resolutions of a minori- 
ty of the Legislature of Illinois, and so thankful 
is he for so small a favor, that he breaks out in a 
bitter taunt against the East and North, and per- 
petrates a towering compliment to, and a glowing 
prediction of, the growing power of the West. 
This is his language. 

" Did you hear of the infuriated mob that 
' basely hung the author of this bill in effigy, on 
' Boston Common ? But did you note soon after 
' the cheering tones of approval the west wind 
' brought from his prairie State ? Remember 
' gentlemen, in the midst of your exultation, that 
' the political power of this country is now climb- 
' ing the summits of the Alleghany mountains, 
' and before this decade closes, will have pursued 
' its unreturning course far into the valley of the 
' Mississippi — that vast region richer than the 
' delta of the Nile, aud whose millions, and ever- 
' increasing millions, are destined to a political 
' unity as lasting as civilization and commerce, 
' bound forever together by the double tie of in- 
' terest and affection." 

It is all so, Mr. Chairman ; but, alas, for poor 
old Kentucky, unless she devise some meaus by 
whic^to cast from her bending shoulders this 
" Old Man of the Sea," this eating cancer, this 
consuming curse of Slavery, she dooms herself to 
a premature old age, and in her youth and young 
manhood, to fall the lowest, and become the least, 
in the bright galaxy of States which is to form this 
stupendous central power. Yes, sir, the political 
power of this nation is pursuing its unobstructed 
way to its resting place in the great valley of the 
Mississippi ; but let the gentleman from Kentucky 
remember, let every slaveholder on this floor mark 
my words — I utter them in all kindness, but with 
a solemn conviction of their truth — the pathway 
of this march of power will not be moistened by 
a single tear of the coffled slave. Onward, sir, 
and still onward, is the remorseless tread of em- 
pire to her rightful home ; but no crack of the over- 
seer's bloody lash, no shriek of the lacerated slave, 
no groan of the despairing mother, torn from the 
child she has borne iu sorrow, is mingled with, or 
mars the shouts and anthems of, the free. No, sir ; 
no ! The plow, the anvil, and the loom, the ax, 
the scythe, and the reaper, the chisel, the saw, and 
the trowel, with all the multitudinous equipments 
of civil liberty — these, sir, with songs of praise 
and thanksgiving to the Great Emancipator for 
the priceless gem of personal freedom — these, 
these ! arc the accompaniments, the music of that 
march of empire, the mJy'estic tread of whose 
goings forth, is destined to " crush out " human 



9 



/z^ 



bondage, giving deliverance to both master and 
slave. 

But the question is tauntingly asked by the gen- 
tleman from Kentuckj", [Mr. Breckinridge,] 
" Cannot you of the free States, on this theory of 
'popular sovereignty,' compete successfully with 
US of the slave States for supremacy in the Terri- 
tories — you who have some fifteen millions of free 
population, while we of the slave States have less 
than one half that number? If you cannot, then 
what becomes of your boasted superiority of free, 
over slave institutions ? " To this boastful inter- 
rogation my answer is, N'o ! We cannot trans- 
plant our higher order of civilization, from the old 
free States into the new Territories, with the celer- 
ity which you of the slave States, can transferyour 
rude and slipshod institutions from the old, worn- 
out, and dilapidated slave States, to those Territo- 
ries. And this you know very well ; and hence, 
and hence only, j'our ready appropriation of the 
cant phrase of " popular sovereignty." This, 
however, is the result of no superiority of slave 
over free institutions, but the reverse — from their 
actual inferiority. As in the animal economy, the 
fecundity is inversely as the lowness of organiza- 
tion, so in social and political organizations, their 
powers of reproduction are exactly in the same 
inverse ratio ; that is, the lower the organization, 
the more rapidly may they be multiplied. A mo- 
ment's examination of the nature of free and 
slave institutions, will confirm this theory. The 
slaveholder, from a double necessity, is a propa- 
gandist of his system. Continued slave cultiva- 
tion smites the soil Avith the curse of barrenness ; 
Slavery must therefore, expand or perish. 

The multiplication of slave States clothes the 
slaveholder witii political honors, confers on him 
political power, " puts money in his purse," and 
opens up for him, ne^ and virgin soil in exchange 
for that which had become worthless from slave 
cultivation. Hence the slaveholder's rampant 
propagandism. Slavery also impoverishes and 
debases the non-slaveholder. It makes labor dis- 
honorable, and thus deprives the laborer of even 
moderate wealth, without which, he can neither 
be respected, nor worthy of respect, in a slave- 
holding communit}-. He forms no local attach- 
ments, and the poor '•' sand-hiller" maj^, at a mo- 
ment's notice, pack his few traps, and his wife 
and baby, on his old horse or mule, while he and 
the children, squalid, ignorant, and reckless, fol- 
low behind on foot, to any place where the slave- 
holder may have pointed or led the way. Having 
but little to dispose of, and less to carry with him, 
comparatively destitute of mental, moral, and so- 
cial cultivation, his local attachments are few 
and feeble — constituting the connecting link be- 
tween the slave and slaveholder — inheriting the 
pride of race of the one, and the ignorance and 
poverty of the other, he is a necessary instrument 
and accompaniment of the slaveholder's migra- 
tions. Governed b}' the smile, as implicitly as the 
slave by tha frown of the slaveholder, the " poor 
white folks," the slave and the master, constitute, 
as it were, a military force of the Slavery propa- 
gandists, moving to the new Territories with a 
celerity which cannot be approached by emigrants 
from the free States. On the principle of the 
popular saying, that " falsehood will travel a 



hundred miles, while truth is pulling on its boots,'' 
the slaveholders will have entered and taken pos- 
session of the new Territories ; and from the 
natural and necessary repulsion between the two 
systems, will expel the free State emigrant from 
the territories, thus preoccupied by the natural 
eneiTTOs of free labor. 

A glance at the motives and the process of free 
State emigration, will illustrate this argument. 
The spirit of propagandism does not enter into 
free State emigration at all. This proceeds on a 
calculation of the chances of increasing the pros- 
pective blessings of domestic comfort and civil 
society in tlie far-off home, by enduiing the pri- 
vations necessarily incident to removal to a wild 
and unsettled country. And what are these pri- 
vations ? The school-house for the children, the 
meeting-house for himself and young family ; the 
old homestead, clustered around with the memo- 
ries of many generations, and still genial with the 
untold comforts and conveniences of a freeman's 
home. There, also, are the fathers' sepulchres, 
enclosing the consecrated dust of many genera- 
tions ; and there are the intertwined affections of 
the aged and the young ; the hoary graudsire tot- 
tering on his staff, now living only to recount the 
bright memories of childhood and youth — he can- 
not go, nor can he be left behind. There the fair- 
h.aired youth and bright-eyed maiden — the strong 
affections of their young hearts must be rudely 
torn asunder ; the " new country " must be ex- 
plored by some strong man, of nerve to endure, 
and judgment to choose wisel3^ The " old home- 
stead," with its surplus and untransportable im- 
plements, must be disposed of; neighbors and 
friends summoned in counsel, that on arrival in 
the '• new country," the sine qua -non of free State 
civilization, the school-house and " meeting- 
house," may appear simultaneously with the 
humble dwelling. Every screw must Ije tightened, 
that " no step backward " in the progress of soci- 
ety be taken by this exodus from the sacred asso- 
ciations of " home." This business is the work 
of time ; but when the migration of the free State 
emigrant is completed, he will have planted the 
germ of the highest order of civilization known 
to the human race. But while he is making the 
preliminary' arrangements, nay, while revolving 
the question of " removal " in his mind, the slave 
State emigrant will have imjjroriscd (if I may so 
say) the caricature he calls a State — a thing of 
lean and half-famished " sand-hillers " and " poor 
white folks " — slaves and slaveholders ; but still 
a craft of State, something to be officered and 
manned by two Senators, one Representative, 
and majors, colonels, and generals "too numer- 
ous to be mentioned." This superior speed of the 
slaveholders in "getting up" anew State they 
know full well, and hence their joyful acceptance 
of such " popular sovereignty," over the left, as 
is given the people of these Territories by this 
bill; and this fact, our free State office-seekers, 
nick-named statesmen, might know, if great 
learning or blind ambition had not emasculated 
them of all practical knowledge of things they 
ought to know, as well as of all common sense. 

The gentleman from Vermont, [Mr. Meacham,] 
and the gentleman from Pennsylvania, [Mr. 
Chandler,] indeed, every gentleman who has 



lo 



opposed this bill here or elsewhere, have appealed 
to the Missouri compromise as a compact, exclu- 
ding Slavery from these Territories — as a settle- 
ment of the Slavery controversy of that day, 
assented to by the slaveholding States as the con- 
sideration for the like assent of the free States, to 
the permission of Slavery south of the compro- 
mise line. Gentlemen of the free States, insist that 
this was an agTeement between the two sections, 
fairly made, and consequently, l^inding in honor; 
though, from the condition of the parties to it, not 
irro[)calab]e by act of Congress. This statement 
of the case, it seems to me, with those who recog- 
nise the obligation of these Slavery compacts, 
(which I do not, for reasons stated hereafter,) is 
rather a " tight fit," and a number of Southern 
gentlemen, have stepped manfullj- forv/ard, ac- 
knowledged the obligation and their willingness 
to abide by it in spirit and letter. To those gen- 
tlemen — hopelessly, irreconcilably separated as I 
am from them, by the distance of the poles apart 
on everjr point of the Slavery controversy — I can- 
not deny myself the pleasure of frankh- stating 
my sincere appreciation of a manly and courageous 
act, honorable alike to their heads and hearts. 
But this class of moderate Southern politicians, 
constitutes the most dangerous enemy of the Anti- 
Slavery movement. These are the fatal opiate 
which lulls the Northern mind to a dreamless 
slumber, while the Slavery propagandists are 
hatching their plots of mischief. Sir, as an eter- 
nal opponent of Slavery ; as one who loathes it 
with a strength of abhorrence, which has no lan- 
guage for expression, I most sincerely regret, if 
this iniquitous measure is doomed to pass this 
House, that the South does not present an un- 
broken colunm against the- Missouri compromise, 
in order that every intervening obstacle to a fair 
contest between Liberty and Slavery, may be 
taken out of the way. But sir, this contest, 
which is a moral and political contest, can never 
be conducted to advantage by the friends of Lib- 
erty, while these amiable Southern gentlemen 
stand between the opponents of Slavery and the 
Slavery' propagandists. Sir, as a friend of Lib- 
erty, I rejoice that Southern opposition to this 
bill is waning into an insignificant handful, now 
numbering less than a baJier's dozen, and that it 
must soon be utterly annihilated by the " com- 
pact-breakers" and Slavery propagandists. When 
that time shall have arrived, the North will be a 
unit, and a doughface as rare a bird as the black 
swan. Then sir, let Slavery stand from under, 
for its hour will have come. 

That the acts of Congress -by which Missouri 
was admitted as a slave State into the Union, 
Arkansas organized as a Territory without re- 
striction of Slaverj'-, and Slavei-y excluded from 
the territory called in this bill Kansas and Ne- 
braska, constituted in substance and intention, a 
compact between the Slavery cxtensionists of that 
day on the one part, and the Slavery restriction- 
ists on the other, admits cf no rational doubt. 
When I say that these acts of Congress constitu- 
ted a compact between these parties, I do not of 
course, mean a contract for breach of which a 
suit may be maintained in a court of lavr, or a 
bill for specific performance in a court of equity. 
All I mean bv this language is, that these acts 



constituted such an arrangement of the slave 
controversy, as was considered binding in honor 
and good faith, upon those who were parties to 
it ; and upon those who should succeed them in 
the Federal Congress. That such is the under- 
standing of perhaps every advocate of this perfid- 
ious bill on this floor, is evident by the attempt : 
of each to extenuate this breach of faith on his 
part, hj accusing its opponents of a like breach 
of faith in subsequent organizations of newly ac- 
quired territory. 

It is not my purpose to follow gentlemen in 
their jDettifogging oVyections to the above arrange- 
ment as a compact. It will suffice to say, that if 
they could convict their opponents of the perfidy 
laid to their charge, (Avhich they cannot,) stiU. • 
their conviction would not acquit the advocates 
of this bill, of a deliberate violation of the faith 
of their fathers. But sir, on this question of the 
force and efficacy of these Slavery compacts and 
adjustments, strange as the avowal may seem, my 
judgment and my sympathy are with the South. 
Those compacts and adjustments, by the Consti- 
tution of the United States, are utterly null and 
void, for lack of the semblance or shadow of 
power conferred on Congress to establish, recog- 
nise, or guaranty Slaver}^ under any circum- 
stances whatever. But by the moral constitution 
of the universe, all compacts to plunder, or to 
connive at the plunder and spoil of our fellow- 
men, our equals before our Common Father of the 
great patrimony of life, liberty, and happiness, 
which^ie has given in common to all his chil- 
dren, are doubly void, being both impious and 
immoral. As a simple act of Congress, the re- 
striction of Slavery in these Territories was both 
constitutional and just ; and the Representative 
from the free States, who shall, by any act of 
omission or commission, impair in one iota, the 
strength or vigor of that act, will deserve to be 
coffled with a gang of imbruted slaves, driven to 
the far South, and taught under plantation dis- 
cipline, not to huckster and jockey with other 
men's liberties, until he shall have learned by a 
slave's experience, the value of his own. 

But, further, by the purchase of the Louisiana- 
Territory, and its consequent passing under the 
exclusive jurisdiction of the Federal Government, 
the Slavery then existing in that Territory, was 
ipso facto abolished. For the Slavery restriction- 
ists therefore, to agree to the continuance of the 
sj-stem in Missouri, Arkansas, and what is now 
the State of Louisiana, in consideration of its re- 
striction in what are now called Kansas and Ne- 
braska, wa6 an attempt to purchase the freedom 
of what was alreadj' free, by the enslavement of 
those who were also equally- free. As a com- 
pact, therefore, the Missouri compromise was im- 
moral, unconstitutional, and utterly void ; and 
the wonder to me is, that gentlemen from the free 
States, sliould now seek to avail themselves of. 
this currupt and humiliating concession as the 
foundation of their opposition to this iniquitous 
bill. For myself sir, (and I speak for myself 
alone,) I would as soon bring a suit before a 
court of justice against a thief for a dividend of 
stolen goods, as insist on anything granted to me 
in consideration of a concession on my part, at 
once cowardly, inhumane, ahd unjust. No. sir. 



1 



purpose oi appiupiiiiuag uic iL-iiiuuiic^ .. 
uses of Freedom. 

Ou this arena therefore, Congress invites a 
struggle for supremacy between Freedom and 
slavery. '-'A clear field, and no favor," is our 
language. " Fight it out on your own hook ; it 
IS your matter, not ours." In this state of con- 
?ressional impoteucy, or wilful disregard of a 
solemn duty rather, what hinders, nay, what in- 
centives are there not, for a servile war? Where 
s-ill the end thereof be— can gentlemen tell us ^ 
Mr, weof the free States are not precipitating 
Jiis crisis. Southern politicians, with a few 
Jorthern men, under the mesmeric influence of a 
. NortnernAdmimstration with Southern instincts— 

1 S4'oi*'.^?"f ,^^''.''' ^ '^^ "°* ^'^^e ^0 predicate 
in ? :^ ^^^"listration at all— are in leao-ue 
i;^},^!? / ?""" "P^*^ ^"^ experiment, the end 
13 nenters "with their own petard." 

^=:perienc|aIso Mr. Chamuan, admonishes us, I 



^ ^ccu quote no turtHer trom this masterly de- 
scription of domestic Slavery ; a description un- 
surpassed in the fearful precision of its language, 
and its utter condemnation of this modern "do- 
mestic institution." Look at this picture, all of 
you Democrats who are about to throw wide open 
the doors of this vast territory, to what this slave- 
holding judge has so eloquently proven to be, and 
is constrained to denounce from the bench as an 
immorality, admitting of no excuse but the over- 
bearing necessity of maintaining Slavery v/liere it 
actually exists. There is no Slavery now in these 
Territories. This crime and curse have been thence 
by law excluded now these three-and-thirty years, 
and there is no chance for their gaining foothold 
there, but by the treason of Northern demagogue; 
who are endeavoring to dust the people's eyes to the 
enormity of this wickedness, by their senseless ar.' 
disgusting cant; their miserable, miscreant, pn' 
house babble, about " popular soverieg-nty," "con- 
gressional non-intervention" and the t^egulatiou vt 



11 



11 



' "// 



I would ask nothing on the ground of that igno- 
minious Missouri compromise — that first and fatal 
surrender of the principles and honor of the free 
States, to the insatiable covetings of the fell spirit 
of Slavery propagandism — that pioneer to this 
last infamous project, but only the last, because 
Congress cannot at the same time, sin both in the 
present and in the future. 

I desire, Mr. Chairman, to be distinctly under- 
stood, in Avhat 1 say on the validity of this Mis- 
souri compromise, and I therefore will endeavor 
to restate my position. It is this. The restric- 
tion of Slavery above the line of 36° 30'' north lat- 
itude, by the eighth section of the act of Congress 
of March 6, 1820, was and is constitutional, and 
therefore, as an act of Congress, obligatory until 
repealed ; but it acquired no additional force or 
efficacy, by reason of any congressional assent, 
expressed or implied, to the existence of Slavery 
below that line. Again, suppose Congress should 
organize two Territori^ within the present limits 
of Utah, and in one should prohibit polygamy ; 
and as a consideration, compact, or compromise 
for this, should not disallow it in the other; the 
prohibition would be valid ; but would acquire no 
additional sanctity by reason of such compromise. 
One furthe?' illustration on this point. Suppose 
Southern gentlemen, unable to procure from Mar}-- 
land and Vii'ginia, slaves to supply the New Or- 
leans market, should demand a repeal of the acts 
of Congress prohibiting the African slave trade ; 
and should propose to extend the Missouri slave 
restriction to New Mexico ; and Congress should 
thereupon, re-open the foreign slave trade, and at 
the same time, exclude Slavery from New Mexi- 
co ; this would be a compromise, identical in 
principle with the Missouri compromise; and yet, 
sir, the exclusion of Slavery from New Slexico, 
would be valid ; but I trust there is no Represent- 
ative on this floor from the free States, who 
would demand its observance on the ground of a 
concession so infamous and atrocious, as the re- 
opening of the piratical slave trade. It will be 
obvious from these illustrations, that the principle 
of these compromises, is wholly indefensible, ut- 
terly rotten ; and that sooner or later, they must 
all perish in their own corruption. No con- 
tract between private persons in any civilized 
communit}', based upon such considerations, 
would be tolerated for one moment in a court of 
justice ; and inter-State or intersectional com- 
pacts, thus condemned by the moral sense of 
mankind, cannot in tlie nature of things be obli- 
gatory. 

But, Mr. Chairman, have we of the free States, 
any reason to expect that the slaveholders will 
recognise tlie obligation of those compromises, 
whenever the interests of Slavery maj^, in their 
judgment, demand their violation ? Justice sir, 
or the notion that some things may of eight be- 
long to individuals ; and that things which be- 
long to the individual cannot be rightfully taken 
from him without his consent, is of itself alone, 
tlae sole ground of the inviolability of " compacts 
and compromises " — a man's ri^ht to himself, is of 
course the highest and most sacred of all his 
rights — consequently, to deprive a human being 
of self-ownership, and to subject him against his 
will, to the property ownership of another, is the 



highest act of injustice, short of wilful murder, 
that man can perpetrate upon his fellow. Every 
human being of mature years, is under the high- 
est and most solemn compromise or compact with 
every other, that he icill not invade this sacred right 
of self-oxvnership. The slaveholder is, therefore, 
the violator of this deepest seated foundation of 
human rights. He breaks the great "compact" 
on which hangs the very existence of distributive 
justice and social order. 

How then can the slaveholder be expected to 
abide by "compacts and compromises," when 
such obedience comes in conflict with his slave- 
holding usurpation; that great "nullification" of 
God's supremacy, and man subjection to the 
moral law ? With the slaveholder, power and 
right in all things conducing to mastery over his 
slave, are convertible terms ; and he applies in- 
exorably, this odious definition to all " compro- 
mises and compacts," with whomsoever made, 
the purpose of which is, to exclude Slavery from 
any State or Territory of the Union. This im- 
mutable purpose of the slaveholders, developed 
from the earliest history of the Government under 
the Federal Constitution, and now made so plain 
that " he who runs may read," it is to be hoped 
will ultimately so impress itself on the minds of 
statesmen of the free States, (if indeed, the race, 
like the mammoth, has not been long extinct,) as 
to teach them the inherent wickedness of that 
odious monopoly of human souls and bodies, that 
they may cease to splint and bandage it as a na- 
tional interest, with " compacts and compro- 
mises ; " but on the contrary, induced to treat it 
as it is, a curse and crime — the odium and the 
enemy of civilization, of national honor and 
prosperity. 

How long shall it be Mr. Chairman, ere we 
learn what Slavery is? — that it is but the perfect 
subjugation of the victims of war — war matured, 
ripened, and embalmed ; as it were, the black- 
ened and desiccated mummy of war — a fossilized 
mob. In the slave States, are to be found thus 
preserved through generations, the wars, and 
murders, and rapine of the petty African chiefs 
who kidnapped and sold each other to the Dutch 
and English and Colonial slave traders. Here in 
Christian America, under the pretended sanction 
of the American Constitution, may be found, a 
conserve of these wars and butcheries and kidnap- 
pings, with the horrors of the middle passage su- 
peradded. This is Slavery — American Slavery — 
transferred from barbarous Africa hy American, 
and British, and Dutch barbarians, to become 
tlie chief corner-stone in the temi)le of Americar 
liberty, and the especial pet of American pro- 
slavery Democracy and Christianity. 

To this description of Slavery, the idea of com 
pact, of agreement, is alien utterly. It has nc 
place in the slave code, and I fearlessly assert 
that we of the free States, cannot without dis 
honor, witliout guilt, claim to ourselves any kin< 
of profit or advantage, as the consideration of a; 
agreement on our part, that the people of th 
slave States, may either make or hold slaves o 
a certain designated portion of the national terri 
*MTy; whether that profit or advantage consist i 
the MORAL, SOCIAL, and ecokomical benefits derive 
from the exclusion of Slaveryfrom a certain othi. 



V2 



designated {lortion of the national territory ; or 
whether we receive from the slaveholders, a 
compensation iu money, in lien of such moral, 
social, and economical advantages. In either 
case, if slaveholding be a crime, then Ave of the 
free States, by such a compact, hQCOvaQ participa- 
tors in the crime. If any gentleman is startled 
by the inevitable result of this argument, but 
still doubts, then let him substitute piracy, or 
any other universally admitted crime, for Slavery, 
and he will see at a glance, that he must cither 
cease to declaim iigainst slaveholding as xvronc/^ 
or else must relinquish his demand for the obser- 
vance of compacts based on concessions to the riyht 
of slaveholdinff. 

By the slave code, the master can make no agree- 
ment with his slave ; and for gentlemen of the 
free States, who haggle about the sacredness of 
this compromise, to make agreements with their 
horses, would be no more ridiculous, as a legal 
liargain, in the eyes of Southern gentlemen. 
This was different even under the ancient com- 
mon law, during the midnight of the dark ages, 
when Slavery was allowed in England. Even in 
that dark night of superstition and violence, if a 
master made a contract with his slave, no matter 
how trifling the subject, the contract was valid 
beyond its own provisions. It amounted to an 
absolute emancipation of the slave. Even iu 
that age, every presumption of law was in favor 
of liberty. But not so with the guilty, sneaking, 
contemptible slave codes of our own times and 
country. By these, not only the presumptions of 
law are against liberty, but, in a majority of the 
slave States, perhaps all of them, emancipation 
of slaves is absolutely forbidden, excepting on 
condition of removal from the State. This con- 
trast shows the difference between our own times 
and those of ancient days. It shows that ancient 
common law Slavery was the offspring of igno- 
rance and barbarism, but that, as the light of 
Christianity, with its gentle, humanizing influ- 
ences, dawned upon that darkness, it set the na- 
tions in motion forward, progressing towards 
imancipation and civilization. It shows, too, 
iiat modern Slavery is the whelp of avarice ; 
ind that its continuance is impossible, except by 
eversing the onward movements of civilization, 
md turning us back to the barbarism of Ati'ica, 
vith the beauties of which, modern sham Democ- 
acy seems absolutely enamored ; and determined 
force that barbarism as a dowry, under the 
atching title of " popular sovereignty," on the 
leople of Kansas and Nebraska. But I would 
ay to gentlemen from the free States, that those 
rho make agreements and compromises with 
thers, that those others may enslave their fel- 
jw-men, anywhere or for any purpose but for 
uuishment of crime, have no just reason to ex- 
ect such comiiromiscs will be observed, when 
ither the interests or the power of the ensla- 
ers come in conflict with the terms or the ob- 
■cts of such compromise. Such compacts on 
oth sides, are violatious of faith with mankind; 
Lir complaints therefore, that the slaveholders 
D not keep within the bounds limited by the 
issouri compromise, but endeavor to break over 
lem without our consent, are not well founded, 
fue, we of the free States took the " thirty pieces 



of silver," and in consideration thereof, consented 
to the limits within which all the cruelties and 
loathsome abominations of Slavery might be 
practiced ; and did not perhaps, anticipate that 
the slaveholders would treat their concessions 
to freedom as an " Indian gift," (a gift to be re- 
sumed when desired by the donor.) So neither 
did Iscariot probably, when he bargained merely 
to show the chief priests and Pharisees, where the 
Saviour might be found, anticipate so dread a 
consecjuence of the mercenary act, as the cruci- 
fixion ; the verdict of mankind has nevertheless 
consigned the betrayer to an immortality of in- 
famy. Let us therefore profit by this example ; 
and bargain no more for the transfer of the 
rights and liberties of other men. 

Sir, when the people of the free States sell the 
black man's freedom to the slaveholder, it is not 
strange that the latter insist on guaranty of title; 
and when this guarantee is most easily effected 
by a breach of the contract of guaranty, this in- 
fraction becomes the natural and characteristic 
remedy ; and herein gentlemen of the free States 
have a practical illustration of the proverb, 
"What is got over the Devil's back goes under 
his belly." And sir, this naming of the Prince 
OP Knaves and rascally compro7niscrs, Vividly re- 
calls to mind, that celebrated compact of his, so 
closely analogous in principle, with these "truck 
and dicker" compromises by free State poli- 
ticians, of the black man's inalienable right to 
liberty, whereby the Arch Oppuessor, for an im- 
pious consideration, offered to transfer " all the 
kingdoms of the earth," of which, he oicned no' a 
foot, to the Great Emancipator. 

Sir, will Northern statesmen never learn, even 
by experience, that Slavery is an incurable ulcer 
on the body-politic, wearing out the veiy life of 
freedom ? — that it is a ceaseless aggression upon 
justice, and, from its ver^"- nature, eternally op- 
posed to law and order? — that it and Freedom 
never, never can be so fraternized as to dwell 
together in unity? — that, in its nature, it is the 
repudiation of justice, which is the foundation of 
law? Why not look this mere surface truth in 
the face, and cease these vain attempts at tinker- 
ing u}! alliances and compacts between interests 
in their deepest nature, eternally and irrecon- 
cilably hostile? Why talk of "compacts," when 
we know that Slavery lives and has its being in 
breach of faith ; that its fell and hateful spirit is 
aggression, violence, and the gratification of its 
own unbridled will ? Hence the seizure of Tex- 
as, the dismemberment of Mexico, the eager cov- 
eting of Cuba, and now, lastly, this attempt to 
thrust its execrable self upon Kansas and Ne- 
braska. Sir, the spirit of Slavery is the deaulj^ 
enemy of human rights, the enemy of the human 
race. Compromises with it, iire as impious as 
they are foolish and vain. 

The spread of this spirit, like the march of the 
pestilence " that walketh in darkness," is the 
terror of mankind. The spirit of Liberty and 
the spirit of Slavery cannot co-exist in harmony. 
Attempts to unite angels of light with " goblins 
damned," would be no more audaciously impi- 
ous. Sow as many i)illows under the armholes 
of oppression and injustice, daub them with the 
uutempcred mortar of " compai^ts and comprc- 



13 



//■ 



mises," as much as you will, still your attempts ] ihey gave and bequeathed to the South, all the 
to join together what God Almighty has jnit ; rights and benefits guarantied in that comijromise, 
asunder, ought and must and will, fall to pieces ! in consideration of the anticipated support of 
as a miserable botch of pseudo statesmanship, ; Southern politicians for that high ofGce; and the 
fit only for the scorn and derision of mankind. ' usual teijtamentary form running in this vrise: 
Why sir. is there a man ou this floor, so unre- ' " We, A. B., &c., being weak in body, but of sound 
fleeting as not to feel assured, that in our political | and disposing mind and memory, in view of the 
machinery of Slavery and Freedom, the friction j uncertainty of political life, and the certaintj- of 



of its working, as each increases in strength and 
extent of surface, will increase also in severity, 
and become more and still more remediless, until 
the harder and stronger will have ground the 
weaker to X'owder? '-Compacts and adjust- 
ments " have been " weighed in the balance and 
found wanting," and the issue between Liberty 
and Slavery, so long "staved off" by self-glori- 



political death, and being fully persuaded that 
this is our last and only remaining chance for 
realizing the high object of our ambition, do give 
and bequeath," &c., would have been no inapt 
preamble to those measures. 

But sir, that compromise was, and ever has 
been, odious to the people of the free States, of 
all parties. Out of compassion to the eminent 



fying statesmen, aspiring politicians, and " lower I gentlemen, to further whose chances for the 

law" divines, must now be joined, thanks to the i Presidency it was made; and to quiet th& nerves 

restless little, and would-be great men who com- ! of certain timid and conservative gentlemen who 

menced clubbing the apple of the Presidency so | were doubtless, reallj' alarmed at the " ravingvS, 

longliofore it was ripe, and while tlieniselves also, ; and hissings, and bowlings,'' (to use the amiable 

were equally green. I language of the gentleman from Georgia,) of 

The ]iolitical crimes and follies of every strug- ' Southern gentlemen on this floor, that compro- 

;^gle for the Presidency, the distribution of the i mise was reluctantl}- acquiesced in by the Whigs 

I spoils when that struggle is over, to Incompetent ' and Democrats of the North. But it never re- 

1 and worthless political fortune hunters, as a re- | ceived more than a reluctant, a loathsome acqui- 

ward for the frauds and falsehoods, the tricks escence ; and in this lurks the great and fatal 



and cheats, successfully j^racticod on the masse; 
of the people of the free States, to decoy them 
into the support of some impotent tool of the 



delusion of the projectors and advocates of this 
laost iniquitous measure. Neither the intellect, 
the heart, nor the conscience of the people of the 



Slavery propagandists, are just beginning to open j free States, was with, or for that compromise, 
their eyes to the palpable f.ict, that our partisan | On the contrary, the intellect, the heart, and the 
politicians are neither patriots nor statesmen, but ! conscience of that people, (those of them, I mean, 



rather a gang of political privateers and free 
hooters, who have navigated the ship of State on 
to the outer circuits of the great whirlpool of 
universal Slavery; and, tliat. unless this piratical 
crew are cast overboard, and the ship's helm put 
UARD ovEK with a stern and defiant hand, her 
cargo of Freedom is lost forever. 

"Liberty for the slave, or Slavery for the froe 
laborer," is now the dilemma into which the 
Union is forced by the cupidity of the slavehold- 
ers and the corruption of fi'ee State political 
adventurers ; and as non-slaveholdeus, there is 
no choice left to us, but to submit to the iron 
despotism of the Slavery propagandists, or suffer 
tlie North and the South, like Abraham and Lot of 
old, to part as friends, rather tlu'.n to live togeth- 
er as rival enemies, in a hopeless and embittered 
struggle to harmonize systems so utterly, fatally 
irreconcilable, as Liberty and SLAVEitv. 

The gentleman from Georgia, [Mr. Stephens,] 
the other day, seemed to imagine himself fighting- 
over again the great compromise battle of 1850; 
and iniismucli as Northern gentlemen at that time 
cither Avere, or affected to be alarmed for the 
safety of the Union, the gentleman is under the 
delusion that the like bluster now, will produce 
the like eflect upon the present Congress. That 
gentleman, (and he is by no m-ans the only one 
in the same d.arkness,) evidently did not then 
understand the causes which led to that ruinous 
and disgraceful surrender of Northern principles 
and Northern honor ; and he must have been 
dreaming from that time to this. That compro- 
mise may be said to have been the last will and 
testament of certain very distinguished, but aged 
and infirm, candidates for the Presidency, wherein 



M'ho were endowed with these attributes,) con- 
demned, repudiated, abhorred that dishonorable, 
that humiliating act. But sir, the gentleman 
from Georgia, and those who are co-workers 
with him, are laboring under the strange delusion, 
that the compromise of 1850, h.as now become 
popular in the free States, and tliat this Nebraska 
and Kansas bill, being only another cub of the 
same litter, will also speedily become as great a 
favorite with the people of the free States. From 
hence sir, comes to the advocates of this bill, the 
pleasant fancy, that all the ojiposition to the guilty 
project of cursing with the mildew of Slavery the 
heart of the North American continent, and turn- 
ing it into a kennel for the breeding of slaves 
for the shambles of the South, are but the "ra- 
vings, and bowlings, and hissings, of the beaten 
and routed ranks of the factionists and malcon- 
tents," as the gentleman from Georgia has it. 

Why sir, we "factionists and mal-contents" 
predicted just sueh a finale, to that weak and 
rcicked bargain, sale, and surrender of humanity 
and justice, and the honor and interests of the 
free States ; and we take this new rascality very 
coolly ; but your treacherous arrow has touched 
the crural nerve of the drowsy and slumbering 
old fogies who were snoozing comfortably under 
the shadoAv of Southern chivalry and Southern 
honor: but now, the great deep of the Northern 
heart is heaving with the indignation of those 
betrayed, but thoroughly roused leviathans ; and 
my advice to the chivalry and doughfaces is, 
to "stand from under:" "for if thou hast run 
with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, 
then how canst thou contend with horses?" Yes 
sir, if the few obscure, despised, and hated Abo- 



14 



litionists, as you contemptuousl}' call tliem, have 
becu an OTcr-matcli for you, what are you to do 
when the united hosts of the betrayed and in- 
dignant free States enter the course against 
you ? Oh, says the gentleman from Georgia, to 
the Representatives of the free States, betray 
your constituents, commit treason against hu- 
manitj- ; and make your names but other words 
for hypocrisy, knavery, and cowardice. " Go 
back to your constituents and tell them you are 
right, and they are wrong." Yes sir, the gentle- 
man from Georgia recommends that we return to 
our constituents with this liagitious "lie in our 
right hands," and try to palm it off on the read- 
ing, reflecting, moral, religious, and intelligent 
people of the free States; and he seems to think 
they will take all such stuff for Gospel, as readily 
as a congregation of illiterate, half-drunken, pot- 
house loafers would, the oracular crudities, cant, 
and humbuggery, of a favorite political leader, 
from whom they expected to receive gratis, both 
politics and whiskey. 

But in this business, this sublime, heroic busi- 
ness, of bearding constituents by throwing their 
cherished principles in their faces, is a game that 
two may play at ; and I say to the gentleman 
from Georgia, " physician, heal thyself." Sup- 
pose the gentleman returns to his own constitu- 
ents, and tells them that " they are wrong, and 
he is right;" that slavery is a great moral wrong, 
a curse to master and slave, and a double curse 
to those who are neither masters nor slaves; and 
that it ought not to exist at all, much less be ex- 
tended over those Territories now free. I flatter 
myself that I shall be able to convince the gentle- 
man from Georgia, that mj- proposition is reason- 
aide in comparison with his to us of the free 
States. Looking through the returns of the 
seventh Census, I find all classes of the gentleman's 
constituents, number 110,G01. Of these, 63,435 
are slaves, and 816 free colored. Now, the gen- 
tleman would not need to expend much breath in 
good faith, to conquer the prejudices against lib- 
erty, of this, the largest portion of his constitu- 
ents. The residue of them, numbering 46,320, 
are free white persons, of Avhom 10,935 are males, 
above the age of tAventy years. About one-tenth, 
or 1,100, are slaveholders, the balance, 9,800, are 
"poor white folks;" (I believe they are so termed 
at the South.) 

Now sir, I am persuaded that a gentleman so 
full of the red-hot lava of eloquence as the gen- 
tleman from Georgiix — one so richly endowed with 
the gift of making the better appear the better reason^ 
would have but little trouble in demonstrating to 
those ^-?oo)- constituents of his, that the enslave- 
ment of the negro, by degrading labor, had been 
tho cause of the poor white man's poverty and 
degradation, and would be forever a " dead lock" 
on the moral and social elevation of themselves 
and their posterity. By these, and other argu- 
ments which the gentleman's talents and genius 
would at once suggest, it seems to me he might, 
vv ithout very serious trouble, persuade this class 
of his constituents, to " conquer their prejudices" 
in favor of an institution, at once the poor man's 
curse and the rich man's crime. But by what 
arguments the gentleman might succeed in per- 
suading the eleven hundred slaveholders in his 



district to "conquer their prejudices" in favor of 
"faring sumptuously every day" on the fruits of 
labor, extorted from their bondmen by the cruel 
appliances of the slave system, I do not know. 
It might, I think vrould be an ugly job; but by 
so much would its accomplishment be the more 
worthy the gentleman's prowess. But tough and 
ugly as the job may be for the gentleman, it will 
not compare in dilliculty with that which he com- 
mends to some of us of the free States. The "pre^ 
judices" of my constituents, for instance, in favor 
of the "golden rule,'' and the Declaration of In- 
dependence, added to the universal instincts of 
humanity — the teachings of reason — the voice of 
conscience, as well as the invincible biases of a 
Christiau education, all would constitute a Gib- 
raltar of difficulties, which I confess would be 
sufficient even, to dampen the chivalry of the 
veriest of the Quixotes among the Slavery propa- 
gandists. Besides, in my case, with the excep- 
tion of some two or three hundred Government 
officials whose "prejudices" on these subjects, 
are not vincible, but vendible, I have of male 
constituents of twenty years old and upward, 
over twenty thousand capable of reading and 
writing, together with a like number of women, 
equall}- well instructed, intelligent, and if pos- 
sible, of still more unconquerable love of justice, 
libertj-, and Christianity, and a corresponding 
abhorrence of Slavery. All these, Mr. Chairman, 
constitute a phalanx of emancipationists whose 
" prejudices" in favor of universal liberty under 
just and humane laws, I have neither the incli- 
nation nor the audacity, even to ask them to 
" conquer." No sir, no ! I confess it, I have no 
stomach for such a fight. My choice would be 
most decidedly, to "let out the job" to the gen- 
tleman from Geoi-gia. Mr. Chairman, I would 
say here to that gentleman, or any other South- 
ern gentleman, in all good faith, that if his chiv- 
alry move him to the conquest of the prejudices 
of this formidable army of " fanatics" in favor of 
liberty, I will, on their part, guaranty to him a 
courteous and cordial reception among them, and 
a patient and candid hearing of all he may have 
to say upon the whole merits of this great con- 
troversy between Liberty and Slavery, or between 
those he denounces as " fanatics, serpents, and 
adders," and the slaveholders. 

I will go further. I will guarantj^ that the 
gentleman will not find among that twenty thou- 
sand of my constituents, five hundred who do 
not utterly loathe and execrate domestic Slavery 
as a gross moral wrong, a physical, political, and 
social curse ; but nevertheless, he may a'dvocate 
Slavery and denounce Liberty, with all the vehe- 
mence of his most exciting declamation ; and j-et 
he shall be received with hospitality, heard with 
candor, and treated with courtesy and kindness ; 
not a hair of his head injured, or a threat of per- 
sonal violence uttered against him. The gentle- 
man may talk to them of the " ravings, bowlings, 
and hissings of vipers and adders," with the unc- 
tion of one fresh from a dance in the snake apart- 
ment of Noah's ark, and yet I am sure my con- 
stituents will be moved to merriment onl^-, at 
such extravagant language, not to- insult or vio- 
lence. Yes sir, though I would hold myself re- 
sponsible for all I have undertaken in behalf of 



15 



^ /I 



the gentleman's safety, and the decorum of my 
constituents, still I would not stand surety, that 
the graduates of the numberless school-houses the 
gentleman would see there, might not oppose to 
hira, arguments more destructive to his reason- 
ing, than the brickbats from our Pro-Slavery op- 
ponents were .wont to prove, to our limbs and 
heads. Finally sir, I am fully persuaded that 
the gentleman would return from his campaign 

■ among my constituents, fully satisfied that they 
constitute as moral, intelligent, industrious, and 

t happy a people, dwelling in the delightful and 

■ happy homes conquered ft'om an unbroken and 
i repulsive wilderness, and transformed by the re- 
Isistless energy of free labor, into green pastures 
;and teeming fields ; and on the whole, exhibiting 
•as fair and desirable a spectacle of the physical, 
Isocial, and moral blessings of liberty as can be 

found on the footstool of the benevolent Creator. 

But to return to the gentleman's favorite theme, 
the "conquest" of what he is pleased to term 
" prejudices" against Slavery — or in other words, 
our instinctive love of Human Liberty. This is 
the conquest to which we are so fervently invited. 
To do this, involves the self-perversion of human 
nature from its loftiest, holiest instincts, to its 
lowest, fellest depths of utter, hopeless degrada- 
tion. This is the " sublime spectacle," for the 
repetition of which the gentleman entertains such 
fervent yearning. Sir, one having a taste for the 
sublimity of that spectacle, where self is sacri- 
ficed to DUTY, cannot appreciate the one so rav- 
ishing to the gentleman's perverted vision. There 
may be sublimity in audacious wickedness, such 
as was exhibited when the Prince of Hell solicit- 
ed adoration from the Prince of Life. One whose 
nature is ravished liy this kind of sublimity, may 
well enjoy the sublimity of that scene depicted 
bj' the gentleman from Georgia, with so much 
apparent, and I doubt not, real satisfaction. 

But sir, the gentleman's wish is father to the 
thought that the people of Boston, on the occa- 
sion to which he alludes, overcame their hatred 
of Slavery and the insolence of the slave power. 
Sir, I ask, and 1 hope some son of Massachusetts 
will answer on this floor, whether, at the com- 
mand of an apostate son of New England, the de- 
scendants of the Pilgrims and Puritan's, quench- 
ed the fires of liberty lighted by their fathers, 
when they first set foot on the sands of the glo- 
rious old Bay State? Whether they did or not 
"crush out" and conquer their hate of oppres- 
sion, their devotion to the principles, for the pres- 
ervation of which, their fathers' blood moistened 
the first battle-fields of the Revolution ? Sir, as 
one of the humblest of all the childi'cn of the old 
Bay State, I give the degrading intimation of the 
gentleman from Georgia, an indignant denial I 
No sir, never 1 In a moment of weak commis- 
eeration for that " archangel ruined," the peo- 
ple of Boston, Massachusetts, reluctantly smoth- 
ered their convictions of duty to themselves 
and country, but did not conquer their love of 
Liberty, nor obliterate from their hearts their 
reverence for the principles and deeds of their 
glorious fathers. Sir, they did not forget the 
Revolution ; they did not forget Lexington and 
Bunker Ilill. Their fault was, that in a moment 
of great excitement and strong temptation, they 



declined from the " straight and narrow path" of 
right by " doing the evil " of yielding to the de- 
mands of the slave power, " that the supposed 
good," of even a chance that Daniel Webster 
might be President of the United States, might 
com* of it. But sir, I trust that Massachusetts, 
by that kind of financiering, has by this time, 
learned that the slave power, like its great pro- 
genitor, leads its followers into trouble, but leaves 
them to extricate themselves as they best may. But 
if the cheat in that Presidential game of poker was 
not enough to dispel the delusion, this last foul 
play of the slave power, by the aid of free State 
political poachers, to steal from Freedom this 
great Territory, and consign it forever, to the 
doom and curse of Slavery, has uncapped the 
volcano ; and these " smothered convictions," 
not "conquered prejudices," are blazing over 
New England, and all the free States, with an 
intensity, threatening the existence of Slavery 
itself. And this, Mr. Chairman, is but the " be- 
ginning of the end." This new outbreak of the 
fires of Freedom is but the natural reaction of 
man's moral nature, from that state of collapse 
into which it fell, on yielding to the senseless 
and infamous "compromise measures" — that 
" finality" of fools, without which, the gentleman 
from North Carolina, [Mr. Clixgman,] gravely 
told us, " we should have no Government now ; ' 
to which I reply, if the Federal Government was 
unshipped from the Constitution, and placed on 
the frail trap-sticks, called the compromise of 
1850 — that hateful and Avicked conglomerate of 
treason and folly — the sooner we have "no Gov- 
ernment" the better. Let it perish; for when 
this Government shall cease beyond reclamation, 
to act as the guardian of Liberty under the Con- 
stitution, and shall permanently fall into the 
hands of Slavery propagandists, as it now is, and 
for many years has been, by the treason to Lib- 
erty, of the party called in derision, Democratic, 
it will not- be worth preserving. I am willing, 
sir, (and I speak the sentiments of an overwhelm- 
ing majority of my constituents,) to abide by the 
Constitution of the United States, when adminis- 
tered according to its spirit and letter. But, as 
one of the humblest of the people of the free 
States, I am not willing to see the' Constitution 
perverted from the beneficent ends for which it 
was framed ; and the Government under it, trans- 
formed into a felon's league for the oppression of 
the black man, the impoverishment and degrada- 
tion of the white laborer; and rendered service- 
able only to promote the inordinate ambition and 
cupidity of some two hundred and fifty or three 
hundred thousand slaveholders, and the few thou- 
sand of free-State renegades, purchased by Exec- 
utive patronage. The Constitution, thus distorted 
and perverted, is Vap slaveholders' Constitution 
and Government. It exists for their benefit, to 
gratify their cupidity, to satiate their ambition, 
to protect their exclusive interests, to extend their 
system of labor and social order, to promote their 
execrable anti-freedom and anti-civilization pol- 
icy ; and it is theirs to enable them to work all 
this mischief, at any cost of public morality, pe- 
cuniary expense, or national honor. To this re- 
morseless lust of Slavery propagandism, ever}- 
other sentiment, every other interest, and every 



16 



other principle, are offered as cheap and fitting 
sacrifices. To appease this "never-gorg-cd levia- 
than," the whole immense patronage of the Fed- 
eral GoTernmcnt is made to minister. Before 
this deformed and hateful monster, every officer 
of the Executive and judicial departments is made 
to bow and swear allegiance, from the President 
down, through all that countless swarm, num- 
t)ered by hundreds of thousands, all trained to 
the lowest and meekest servility of passive obe- 
dience, and distributed over and through the 
whole land, numerous as frogs in the plagues of 
Egypt — each and all of these, civil, military, and 
naval, dependent on this omni])rescnt power of 
evil. The imlependcnt man who seeks cmplo3"- 
ment under the Federal Administration, no mat- 
ter what his qualifications or fitness — no matter 
if he were Washington or Franklin, Jay or Adams, 
Lafayette or Kosciusko — if he were to re-appear 
Avith his old-fashioned devotion to human liberty, 
and ask for a petty clerkship under some braying 
ass, whom the slaveholders and their flunkies had 
wrapped round Avith the lion's skin of authority, 
he would be rudely thrust aside, to give place to 
any worthless pnppy, mean enough to fawn at 
the footstool of power for crumbs of patronage. 
Sir, the children of those whose blood soaked the 
battle-fields of the Revolution, unless degraded 
enough to play the sycophant to this atrocious 
slave power, so far as protection or patronage 
under the Government, purchased with their 
fathers' blood is concerned, are as much alirnfi, as 
if they had been born and reared cannibals of Now 
Zealand or the Fejee Islands. In their own coun- 
try, in the homes of their fathers and their fathers' 
fathers, they are aliens and outlaws — made such 
by this guilty combination of slaveholders and 
renegade politicians of the free States. No sir, 
the Government has ceased to be the Govern- 
ment of the people of the United States, or for 
the people of the United States. It is the slave- 
holders' Government — a base and villanous oli- 
garchy, the only intent and purpose of which is, 
to multiply offices to be filled by the Government 
hangers-on, and paupers, generated by the slave 
system ; to collect the taxes needful to fill the 
mouths and pockets of this famished brood of 
cormorants ;■ and to extend, strengthen, and per- 
petuate the accursed system, so utterly ruinous 
to the moral, political, and social interests of the 
free laborer. It is the slaveholders' Government ; 
and for one, I am for reform or separation ; I am for 
justice, and for liberty — without which there can 
be no justice; and sir. if this Government will 
not secure to us of the free otates, the Territory 
which is now free, and has been made and kept free 
by act of Congress, now for more than an entire 
generation, then sir, it is not the Government in 
which the non-slaveholders of the United States 
have an interest to the value of the President's 
salary. For such a Government, so administered, 
I have neither respect nor afiection ; it is fit only 
.for reform or revolution. On this subject it is 
best for us of the North and South that we un- 
derstand each other. Either the Federal Consti- 
tution does or does not recognise slaves as^^rojs- 
erly, and guaranty to the master, property in his 
slaves. If the Constitution does this, then it is a 



hypocrisy, a delusion, a cheat; but if it does not, 
then the Government, under the joint misrule of 
the slave and doughface powers, has been ad 
is, a usurpation and a fraud, which will not onlj 
justify, but absolutely demands, either an Ad- 
ministration based on the free spirit of the Con- 
stitution, or a dissolution of the Union. Sir, I 
speak very plainly, and I disdain to resort to tie 
usual cant al^out devotion to the Union, and all 
that. I thiuk I know my constituents well, and am 
well known by them. I know that they are will- 
ing to abide in the Union, under the Constitution 
our fixthers framed ; and in that Union, and ue- 
der that Constitution, they have borne much, ard 
for the preservation of those in their purity, will 
do, endure, and dare as much as men maj 
do, endure, or dare, in any form in which pa- 
triotism may demand the exercise of those high 
qualities ; and yet sir, I feel warranted in saying 
to you in their names, and in their behalf: that 
whenever the slaveholders and doughfaces shall 
havG satisfied them that the Federal Constitution 
is in reality the bulwark and guaranty of chattel 
slavery ; and they are called upon to choose be- 
tween Slavery and the Union on the one hand, 
and Liberty and dissolution on the other; with- 
out an instant's delay or hesitation, they will 
choose Liberty for themselves and their children, 
at any cost and every hazard. But sir, neither I 
nor my constituents entertain any such view of the 
Federal Constitution. "U'e believe its perversion 
to the base use of extending and pei-petuating 
Slavery, has been a violation of its letter and 
spirit ; and we are for dethroning the usurpers, 
and placing in their stead, those who will so ex- 
ercise the powers of the Government as thereby 
to " form a more perfect Union, establish justice, 
insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the com- 
mon defence, promote the general welfare, and 
secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and 
our posterity." To these beneficent ends, we be- 
lieve the powers of the Constitution are ample ; 
and that the exercise of these powers for the ex- 
tension or perpetuation of humt^u Slavery, is a 
usurjiation which, if persisted in, will make a dis- 
solution of the Union not only a right, but a duty. 
To bring the Federal Government " actively and 
perpetuallj- on the side of Liberty," and to dena- 
tionalize Slavery, and confine it strictly to the 
States where it now exists, are the ends we con- 
template, and for these we shall labor, through 
sunshine and storm, through good report and evil 
report — beaten, we shall renew the fight — suc- 
cessful, we shall push on the victory — replying to 
all test;" gentlemen who oppose to this resolutior 
of ours, (as was so succesfully done in 1850,) 
threats to secede from the Union, what the benev- 
olent Uncle Toby said to the fly, " the world is 
wide enough for thee and me," simply reminding 
gentlemen that — 

" The fight of Freedom once begun, 
Bequeathed from bleeding sire to son ; 
Though baffled oft, is ever won " — 

And that, as it has been heretofore, so it will 
be again. Liberty must triumph, and Slavery 
perish. 

\ , 



